


Those kinds of words are called kindness

by homobirb



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, Drabble, Time Loop, but he doesn't stay dead, dun dun DUN!, very very very minor gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 19:04:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16069376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homobirb/pseuds/homobirb
Summary: "Goro, do you want to live?"and"Are you ready to stop dying?"





	Those kinds of words are called kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Eve's cover of Mabel. Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_uefh0Etao
> 
> This was just a drabble to work through some feelings.

The first time he opens his eyes after dying, he feels scared. Goro can't, shouldn't be alive. He remembers the bullet piercing his forehead, his body collapsing against the bulkhead door that separated him from the Phantom Thieves. He tries to take a deep breath and shudders on the exhale. His fingers, trembling, crawl against his face. When they reach his forehead and trace over raised skin, he nearly shrieks. He tears his way out of his bed, in his apartment, and races to the bathroom mirror. His heart thuds loudly in his chest, adrenaline pooling in his stomach. Goro moves the hair out of his face and pales; there's a circular scar, smack dab in the center of his forehead. And that's it, he's heaving, tears streaking down his cheeks, choking on sobs that spill forth from deep inside him.

It takes him a couple days to realize it's April again.

He pretends it was all a bad dream, a lucid nightmare of his brain taking his worst fears to the extreme.

June ninth, he overhears the Phantom Thieves again. The leader, a tall black-haired teen, stares at him, nearly slack-jawed, for a second before his face morphs back into its normal aloof expression.

Goro makes the pancake comment. The teen across from him quirks a brow but says nothing.

June tenth. He finds the teen (his name is Akira, just like in his dream). They promise to keep in touch.

July twenty-fourth. He runs into the group -- now with the addition of Niijima junior and that Kitagawa kid -- and throws Akira (Kurusu-kun, he corrects himself) a bone. "I bet we'd make a great team if we worked together," he says and winks. Kurusu flushes.

August twenty-eight and he appears in Leblanc, the atmosphere of the café what he missed most from the dream. He introduces himself to Boss and Futaba with his TV smile. Kurusu sees right through him. He pretends to not notice. He also pretends to tear down one of his walls by talking about his piece of shit father.

"You really don't look like him."

Goro freezes. "I'm sorry, do you know him?"

"I've been practicing making deductions." It's a lie, but Goro doesn't call him out, merely gathers his things and leaves soon after.

The scar from the bullet is still hidden behind his hair. His fingers rub at it while he tries to forget Kurusu's eyes boring into him, opting to busy himself with boring cases he already solved long ago.

October twenty-fourth brings Akechi back to Leblanc. Kurusu gives him the same flirtatious lines as last time and he willingly plays along.

October twenty-sixth. He confronts the Phantom Thieves in the PE faculty office. All the thieves, save for Kurusu, act surprised, shocked at their lack of caution in keeping their identities secret.

October twenty-ninth. He doesn't bother stopping Futaba from installing a bug on his phone. He doesn't care.

November nineteenth. Goro betrays Kurusu.

November twentieth. He kills the guard in the interrogation room, same as last time. This time, he drops the gun. "I know you're a fake. Time to go back to the real you." He pulls out his phone and hits several buttons before the room spins and he's back in the real world, staring at a very surprised and confused Joker.

"What are you...?" Kurusu's voice is hoarse.

"You can't fool me twice."

Kurusu's eyes widen. "You remember?"

Goro lets a chuckle out, then swipes his bangs back to show the scar on his forehead. "I'm already dead, so it doesn't matter what happens."

He turns to leave. From the clatter behind him, he can tell Kurusu tried to stand up and unsurprisingly, from the drugs in his system, fell over.

"I'll tell your ride you're here."

He passes Sae-san in the hall and says nothing, his hair already covering his bullet wound again.

The second time he dies on the ship isn't easier than the first. The bullet hits him square in the chest, burrowing deep through his lungs and heart.

Goro wakes up, sweating, in his own bed, in April. Again.

It isn't until after the fourth time he dies, after having been shot both in the brain (right next to his old scar) and in the chest again (right over where he was hit before), that Kurusu grabs his hand, on July tenth.

"I can't keep watching you die."

Goro's mouth pulls back in a sneer. "Try dying. It isn't easier."

"Don't you want to do something? You've done the exact same thing the last four times and each time you end up dying. There has to be a reason we keep coming back, and I think it's because you keep dying."

"Or maybe you're just shit at this game."

October twenty-ninth. Futaba doesn't try to grab his phone. Goro almost wants to offer. After all, he doesn't know what'll happen if people start to deviate from the script. From Kurusu's knowing expression, he already has.

November eighteenth. Kurusu calls for a Phantom Thief meeting, before they are to send the calling card and (pretend to) steal Sae-san's treasure. They gather in Kurusu's attic-turned-bedroom.

"Goro, do you want to live?"

All eyes are on him. He lets loose a nervous laugh. "What kind of question is that? Don't talk to me so familiarly, Kurusu-kun."

"It's a valid question, considering all that's happened so far." Niijima junior has her sister's interrogation skill, Goro notes. "We've already been brought up to speed by Akira, so why don't you help us?"

"And do what, exactly? It's too late to abandon the infiltration on Sae-san's palace. I can't exactly cancel the men waiting on standby for tomorrow."

"You're right, it'd be too suspicious," Kurusu says. "We were thinking you could help us with your father's palace."

"Don't give me that bullshit." Ryuji shouts a "hey!" at him. "I either take him down solo or die trying."

"But Akechi," Ann starts, in her obviously-fake-caring voice. "Aren't you tired of dying?"

He stands up; the chair clatters behind him. "And what would you know about dying, hm? Have you gotten four bullets lodged in your body by your father's puppet?" He scoffs. "A fitting end, for a lapdog like me."

His last words before he leaves are, "Tell me when we're going in tomorrow."

November Twentieth. He sends a bullet through cognitive Kurusu's head, then goes home and sobs.

The cognitive version of him hits right between the eyes.

The scar's harder to hide this time around. Sae-san notices it and asks about it; he brushes it off as a birthmark.

Kurusu's mouth is a hard line when he doesn't make the pancake comment. Goro avoids eye contact.

October twenty-sixth.

The Phantom Thieves confront him. He sighs and opts to ignore the rest of the group in favor of directly addressing Kurusu. "Don't bother bringing me into this. I'm tired of playing this game. You might as well skip Sae-san's palace and go straight for Shido. I won't stop you."

He leaves before Kurusu can say anything else.

His cognitive double is waiting for him, even before the Phantom Thieves get two introduction letters. Goro barely looks at the puppet before a bullet is lodged into his left eye.

He wakes up screaming. His eye isn't in its socket by the time he checks the mirror.

Kurusu reaches out to touch his face. It's July tenth. "Are you ready to stop dying?"

Goro nods wordlessly.


End file.
